Zinn

[don]

Here on the tulip there's quite a bit on the tepid response to events of the majority of Americans. Not always so, as former WW2 bombardier Howard Zinn has dedicated much of his life to illustrating.

http://www.zinnedproject.org/

[rj1]

Re: Zinn

Here on the tulip there's quite a bit on the tepid response to events of the majority of Americans. Not always so, as former WW2 bombardier Howard Zinn has dedicated much of his life to illustrating.

http://www.zinnedproject.org/

Zinn was once described to me as "leftist claptrap".

[neoken]

Re: Zinn

I've read A People’s History of the United States and highly recommend it. Don't agree with everything he says in his speeches, but it's nice to read history from a different perspective.

[Shakespear]

Re: Zinn

I read Zinn's book on US History and it was an eye opener. I knew about many of the events of the past but I did not see the connected dots. He did it Superbly

READ THE BOOK !!!!

PS: Now for a mood booster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQPiV...eature=related

[don]

Re: Zinn

December 20, 2009

My Initiation at Store 5476

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

DEPTFORD, N.J.

JUST after 9 on a rainy December morning, the employees of Wal-Mart Store 5476 gathered in the electronics department and arranged themselves in a circle. This 24-hour supercenter was still sleepy, with only a few customers steering carts slowly through the aisles of Christmas ornaments, Q-Tips and boxes of Toaster Strudel.

Suddenly, the soft electric hum of the store was pierced by the sound of nearly 40 workers shouting in unison: “Good morning, Vickie!”

Their eyes were on an assistant manager, Vickie Smith, as they clapped their hands twice, stomped their feet twice, pumped their fists twice, and topped it all off with a “Whoo-whoo!”

So began a 10-minute meeting that takes place three times a day, at the beginning of every shift, not only here at the Wal-Mart on Cooper Street in Deptford, but at every other Wal-Mart in the nation. That’s 4,200 stores, 12,600 meetings a day.

For a moment, it seemed like any other company strategy session. Ms. Smith and her co-workers discussed the store’s top categories, like electronics and food. They cited products they wanted to push, including winter staples like rock salt and heaters.

But then a few employees offered “an appreciation” — not to a deity, but to one another, for small miracles like shelving more than 5,000 cases of merchandise overnight.

It quickly became clear that these are not the sort of company meetings where a participant can zone out. These are Wal-Mart meetings — two parts militaristic, one part Kumbaya.

Bill Riiff, the store’s manager and a former air traffic controller in the Air Force, stepped into the circle, holding high a pump of hand sanitizer.
“Swine it up!” he bellowed.

Each employee simultaneously extended an arm, palm up, as Mr. Riiff squirted a dollop of goop into one hand after another to help stave off the H1N1, or swine flu, virus.

The employees then greeted a reporter standing among them in a company-issued navy polo shirt, as if she were just another staff member.
“Good morning, Stephanie!” — clap, clap, stomp, stomp — “Whoo-whoo!”



The genesis of the exercises and cheers goes back to the 1970s, when Sam Walton, the Wal-Mart founder, saw tennis-ball factory workers in South Korea start each day with a company cheer and some light stretching. Mr. Walton imported the idea to Wal-Mart, once describing it as a “ ‘whistle while you work’ philosophy, and we work better because of it.”
Wal-Mart’s rituals may seem like corporate Kool-Aid — spirited at best, cultist at worst — yet they enable the company to organize hundreds of workers around a common goal: operating a store more than three times the size of the White House.

Other big retailers, like Home Depot and Lowe’s, have their own cheers and rites. Wal-Mart’s have become legendary, though, mainly because of the company’s size: it employs some 1.4 million people in the United States.



Give me a W ...

Give me an A ...

Give me an L ...

Give me a squiggly ... (This is the part where employees shimmy their hips.)
Each store personalizes a portion of the cheer. Before heading off to their respective aisles and backroom posts, employees at Store 5476 whooped:
“5476, Deptford West, above the rest!”



MR. RIIFF likes to high-five employees. The correct answer when he asks them “How do we feel?” is “Fired up!”

When I asked an employee whether the morning stretches really occurred regularly, she extended her arms and tilted her torso. “You should see him do the airplane,” she said.


John Martini, a greeter, used to say “Welcome to Wal-Mart” whenever customers came into the store.

That was until shoppers began snapping back: “I know where I am.” Now he sticks with “Hello, how are you?” and greets the regulars by name. He also wishes them well when they depart.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/bu....html?_r=1&hpw

[KGW]

Re: Zinn

Zinn was once described to me as "leftist claptrap".

Could describe you, exchanging the "leftist" for "rightist" :p

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Zinn

[QUOTE=Shakespear;140167]
READ THE BOOK !!!!QUOTE]

it's on that very short list of books i've read three times.